Twitch.tv has created an online community for gamers of all sorts.Together these gamers have the opportunity to watch others play video games or play the games themselves. Twitch.tv is a platform where gamers can stream themselves playing games live. While they are live other people are able to watch them, and at the same time they are able to communicate with one another through a chat system.
Before Twitch.tv existed there weren’t many places for you to watch others play video games live. To do that you would mainly have to go to an event that hosted live gaming tournaments. Back then though, there weren’t that many events as video games and esports wasn’t as popular as it is now. For those of you that don’t know what esports is; it is a form of competition using video games.
At these gaming events you usually watched competitive game play. You watched players compete against one another for the goal of either winning a prize or just plain simply recognition. That being said the difference that Twitch.tv made was that, it made it possible for you to watch both competitive gameplay and casual gameplay. You didn’t have to stick to one thing. If you are in the mood to watch players battle it out in a tournament then you were able to do so. If you wanted to instead watch a streamer just playing games for fun then that was also another possibility that you could take up on.
Back in the late 1990’s and early 2000’s there were even less options for you to watch video games. The main way you did so was watching your siblings play video games or either you going to a friend’s house and watched them play there. There were competitive events for video games back then too but they weren’t as popular as they are now because not everyone could go to these events. The main reason why esports is booming as of right now is because of the accessibility everyone has to tune in to watching these events. Sites such as Youtube and Twitch are a benefactor on the booming scene of esports.
Other ways of watching video games game play would be other sites such as Youtube. As of now there are a great amount of Youtubers that post gaming videos for their viewers to see. These Youtube videos lacked one thing though. It lacked the excitement of seeing something unfold in real time, as Youtube videos aren’t live. Eventually Youtube implemented live streaming into their system as well, but it wasn’t as popular as Twitch. Here’s an article that talks about the popularity between Twitch and Youtube. https://www.digitaltrends.com/gaming/the-popularity-of-twitch-youtube-gaming-other-s
Before Twitch.tv was created there was a site that was called Justin.tv. This site had the same concept as Twitch.tv in the way that the channels that were on this site were all live footage. As a viewer you were able to watch footage at real time just like how you can watch others live on Twitch. The site was separated into different categories and the one that was the most popular was the gaming category. Eventually Justin.tv decided to branch the gaming category from the main site and named it Twitch.tv.
Twitch.tv went live on June 6, 2011. Since then Twitch has had over 35 million visitors go on their website every month. The most popular games that are being streamed are League of Legends, Fortnite, Dota 2, and Counter Strike Global Offensive. These games has streamers that stream just for fun and there are also streams that display competitive events of these games. The viewers choose what they want to watch each minute and each day they are in Twitch. Every day each of these categories are getting thousands of viewers.
One of the most important aspects of Twitch.tv is the community that is built between the streamers and their Twitch chat. Every time a streamer turns on their camera (which is optional) and begins to stream their game play, their viewers start to tune in. As the game play continues there are times where the streamer and the viewers share a moment together. For example maybe something funny happens. It causes both the streamer and the viewers to laugh and a connection between them are made even though they don’t know each other in real life. The streamer can talk to the audience and in return the audience can talk in the chat so that the streamer can see.
The viewers can support Twitch streamers in many ways. Some would be following them so that you can see a notification of them going live, informing you that you can watch them. Another way of support would be donating in which you send the streamer you are watching, a donation with a message attached to it. Often Streamers thank their viewers for donations by reading out their messages out loud on their stream. Not only can viewers donate but they also have the option of subscribing to the channel. By doing this you get special
Twitch.tv has continued to involve in ways some people didn’t expect. For example in January 2015 , Twitch introduced music streams. Twitch branched out and added a new category that allowed you to just listen to music and nothing else. No game play, just music. This was the start of Twitch branching out and evolving into something bigger. Following the music category on March 2017, Twitch added the IRL category.
The IRL category was designed for content that didn’t fit anywhere else, and it proved to be very popular. Before the IRL category existed you weren’t allowed to stream anything outside of video games. If you weren’t streaming video games then it was likely that your stream would have gotten taken down. This made it difficult for content creators to do what they want on a limited platform such as Twitch was at the time.
The addition to categories such as IRL and Creative Categories was huge. This added content to twitch that was outside of video games. This in return made Twitch even more popular as people who weren’t accustom to watch video games came to the site to watch IRL channels. With each month passing more and more viewers came onto Twitch.tv to watch other channels besides gaming.
This proved to be helpful for the gaming categories as well since the IRL channels would sometimes introduce the gaming channels. As a streamer you weren’t chained to one category and one category only. If one day you wanted to stream games and the other you wanted to stream yourself eating food, then that was fine. That just helped combine the different communities together.
Most streamers don’t stop their content on Twitch though. They also use their content on Twitch and post them on Youtube at the same time. They do this so that others who didn’t have the chance to tune in on the channel have the chance to watch it on Youtube. This makes it so that the viewers can enjoy their content without going on Twitch.
Twitch.tv may have started as a gaming streaming website, but it has evolved into something bigger. It has evolved into a website that supports the different entertainments that people are able to come up with. Who knows what Twitch will do next, but I’m curious on whether they can do even better.
This article was published as a requirement for the History of Digital Games course at UC Santa Cruz with A.M. Darke.
